


in the stillness of remembering.

by meneliad



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, The Iliad - Homer
Genre: Angst, Domestic, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Post-War, little bit of angst???, love is stored in the menelaus, menelaus loves helen and she loves him, non-descriptive and brief mentions of violence and nudity, not worth writing home about but it is certainly there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27476725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meneliad/pseuds/meneliad
Summary: Menelaus doesn't have nightmares.
Relationships: Helen of Troy/Menelaus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	in the stillness of remembering.

Menelaus doesn’t have nightmares.

 _Correction_. Menelaus doesn’t have nightmares in the way that Helen had expected him to. She was not a foolish woman and she was well aware of the toll that the last ten years, or so, could have had on somebody’s mind, on their sanity. 

Yet, there was no bawling. Helen had expected tears and pained shouting, to be woken in the night by her husband screeching at her and lashing out as though she were the enemy that was plaguing his still-sleeping mind. The Queen had pretty much braced herself for endless nights of holding her King close as he sweat and sobbed and lamented all he had done … and all he had not. 

There was none of that, but he still dreamed. He suffered his tormented thoughts alone, in the still of night, when their bedroom was silent, it was as though he worried about being a burden to her even in his sleep.

That was Menelaus all over. Putting Helen first. Making sure she got a restful night whilst his mind beat away at him in the quiet. 

Almost helplessly she would watch as his brow twitched, the muscles beneath his ageing, furrowed brow would flicker and flinch incessantly, it was like he was engaged in an argument he couldn’t comprehend, let alone win. Helen would see the way his lip would curl and snarl, gifting her flashes of his teeth in the darkness as his lips couldn’t quite form the words he was clearly so passionately stating. It would almost be cute and endearing, if she wasn’t so violently aware of the cause of such actions. Sometimes it would escalate, his leg would lash out and catch her in the thigh, but even then it felt like there was no true weight behind the action and she never mentioned it the next morning. Tonight, it was Menelaus’ hands that seemed so unsettled. They clenched and unclenched into the pillow, never quite resting completely beside his head, instead they stayed tense and taught on their fingertips, trembling all the while. 

Helen had to restrain herself from reaching out and cradling his slender fingers against her own, for fear it would startle him and ignite the situation further. Menelaus would be wracked with guilt to know he had lashed out unconsciously and struck her.

To know he had hurt her would hound him endlessly. 

After all, his men had practically begged him to kill her as soon as he could and for a fearful moment she believed he would, even when he delayed the act to be performed in Sparta, granting her a few more months of peace. 

As far as rumours go, the ones surrounding her survival are lacklustre at best. Filled with bitterness at how she allegedly came to Menelaus naked and pleading for her life and it was only her raw beauty that saved her.

The truth was far more mundane, as it so usually is. The two of them had simply talked, they had cursed and shouted, they wept and beat their chests and at the emotional end to it all they had embraced. 

Even now, as Helen watches her husband struggle and as she so desperately wants to pluck him from the darkness of his mind to the safety of reality and her arms, their relationship was strained. But they were not beyond repair. There was still a lot to say and a lot more to explain, but she was willing to put the effort in and go the distance if he was.

Helen suspected he was, Menelaus was never exactly the type to give up easily. 

_They were not broken._

It seems her thoughts had pulled her further from their bedroom then she realised, as suddenly there is a cool touch on the back of her hand and it startles her back into herself. She glances down to see Menelaus is awake, his worn, coarse fingertips grounding her back into the present.

“You’re awake.” He says, his own voice is dry and unused. 

Helen nods, but quickly verbalises also, unsure if he is awake enough himself to pay attention to such a subtle action, “I haven’t been awake for very long.” she assures, features soft as she smiles. 

“It’s still dark out.” 

She hums the affirmative before simply jumping in, there’s no reason for tentative steps between them anymore, “You were dreaming.” 

“Oh? I’m sorry.” There’s an embarrassed lilt to his words, as Menelaus seems to have connected the dots himself, that his dreaming is the reason Helen is awake so late in the night. 

“It’s alright.” And it really is, “Your dreams…” Menelaus grunts in disdain at the idea of calling them ‘dreams’, as he sits himself up slightly, the pillow supporting his lower back. His hand, however, remains carefully placed on hers and it is Helen that takes the final leap and threads their fingers together. 

Menelaus digs the heel of his hand into his eye, rubbing deeply as though to rouse himself awake further and it is then that Helens realises he doesn’t want to go back to sleep, not yet anyway. She takes it upon herself to help him and keep him away from his demons a while longer. 

“Your dreams,” she repeats, as she shuffles closer and smooths her hand gently over the red hair on his temple, mindlessly tucking it behind his ear. Despite everything, the colour of his hair has remained so bold and fiery, just as it was when she had chosen him all those years ago, though to the trained eye - _her eye_ \- there are certainly flecks of grey and ageing buried deep in his burning locks, “Do you want to talk about them?”

And this, Helen knows, is where Menelaus differs from most other men. 

He is not weak.

That is a very important distinction to make, she muses, but he is certainly softer than most men she knows. An oddly fine line between Paris, the delicate man he once feared she had replaced him with and Agamemnon, his older brute of a brother that he idolised so much. Even now, when asked to talk about his fears and turbulent thoughts, he seems contemplative as though he is going to answer her, he’s just not sure how or where to start. That alone distinguishes him from so many of his kind, his ability to speak and articulate. To open himself up like a wound and let her in, instead of keeping things bottled up for fear of judgement or reprisals. 

Helen cannot be sure that if she were in his position, she would be so trusting. 

Patiently, she studies her handiwork etched into their bed cloths, idly tracing the fading colours before her free hand dances over to the furs around them, they bite into her palm with age, but they hold memories and sentiment, Helen isn’t sure if she’ll ever part with them.

“It’s them.” Menelaus finally says, his voice is so quiet that if she hadn’t been listening out for it, she wouldn’t have heard it, “It’s always them.” 

It is always them. So much so that Helen doesn’t even have to ask who he’s talking about. The men that Menelaus had killed during the war. He had only killed eight men ---

 _Only?_ When did she become so desensitised to these things? It made her shudder. 

Eight men. A drop in the ocean compared to the slaughter wrought by the Phthian boy, Achilles, that she has heard so much about. Scarcely a dent in the amount of lives that Agamemnon had taken and even Odysseus, who had a knack for wiling his way out of things with his mind, had slain hundreds, maybe even thousands.

Yet, her husband seems to have counted every life that his hand had snuffed out.

_Eight._

Eight faces that plagues his dreams. Nameless ghosts of men. They impacted his life so greatly and he didn’t even know their names. He had no clue of the lives he had changed so drastically. Just that there were eight sets of blood on his hands and even if he scrubbed them to the bone he wouldn’t be able to change it. 

Helen’s hand moves from the furs to the side of Menelaus’ face, a fluid motion in the dark as she cradles his cheek in her palm. Even in this low light, she knows that her thumb is dancing over the lines beneath his eyes and the creases by his nose. She can practically feel them in her touch. 

What she certainly feels is Menelaus exhaling heavily against her skin and his hand coming up to encircle her wrist, keeping her close to him. 

“I’m here.” Helen tells him, simply, matter-of-factly, earnestly, “I’m here now.”

_Now._

The flex of his cheek bones vibrates through her arm as he smiles, then he presses a soft kiss to her pulse point and she falters. In such a simple action he has said all that he needs to, that he is glad she is here, that he wants her to stay here beside him in their bed and in his life, that he has missed her terribly and it almost doesn’t feel real to hold her again now. 

That he loves her.

Despite everything, he loves her. 

Nothing more is said for a long time after that. They sit in silence for what feels like forever, their hands clutching onto each other in the safeness of their dark home. They must look like such fools, clinging to each other like youthful lovers who cannot bear to part for even a moment. That the mere thought of not feeling their skin connected is unthinkable. 

Perhaps that’s it. So much time apart can make you desperate and touch-starved, it can make you yearn for the naivety and bliss of a youthful, childish romance. 

A large portion of their life together had been stolen for them and who is to blame for that is something the two of them are yet to discuss - if they ever will. 

They were bent.

They were cracked.

_But they were not broken._

Time passes and Menelaus’ shoulders relax, his body sagging heavily and his heartbeat thrumming away softly, calmly. They do not move. 

Helen is the one to break the silence, as much as she could have sat like that all night, (and she suspected Menelaus wanted to, but even he wouldn’t admit that he was slightly apprehensive to sleep again) she knew that they both needed to rest. There was, after all, a certain not-so-little-anymore girl sleeping next door, who had been desperate to make up for lost time since her parents had returned home and the required energy and an alert mind. 

The hand that rests against his cheek pulls slightly, pulling him back down towards her. Menelaus goes with the movement so easily, so trusting and pliant in her hands that it makes her chest ache. Helen situates them so that his head is resting against her chest, his cheek warm against her breast bone and her arms ensnare his shoulders. 

“It’s time to rest now,” she coos, “Dream of your daughter and your wife. Think of us and the future, do not look back anymore.” It feels filthy, telling him to move on from what he had done, what she had done and to forget the death and the devastation, but she knew deep down that Menelaus would never truly forget, not completely. Yet, he couldn’t cling to it all so desperately anymore, how were they to move forward if his fingers still clasped so tightly to the past? Instead, she would take his hand in hers and they would walk forward together, wherever it would take them. 

Slowly, the puffs of breath against her collarbone even out and the arms around her waist slacken as sleep takes Menelaus once again. 

Helens smiles.

In defiance of what people say, what they sneer when they see her, what their poisonous tongues lash out with, she loves Menelaus. She loves him terribly. 

And, as testament to his character and the kind of man he is, he loves her and her gratitude for that is immeasurable. 

Her own eyelids grow heavy as she presses one final kiss to the crown of his head, through her sleepy haze she watches and sees that he does not twitch restlessly anymore and his brow is smooth and undisturbed by whatever place he is currently in. 

For tonight, at least, he will sleep well and she will hold him all the while. 

Helen allows sleep to take her.

They were going to be okay. 

_They were not broken._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> thought i would dip my toe into fic writing for the first time and see how it goes!
> 
> i adore these two and this was really good writing practice for me at nailing them down better. if you have any ideas/thoughts/essays/translation etc. to share regarding these two, please do! i love learning more about them and their interpretations.
> 
> or come talk about classics in general with me [HERE!](https://achileid.tumblr.com/)
> 
> this is an unbeta'd fic written in a 20 minute binge of spotify love song playlists, so it's probably cliche and cheesy in some places!
> 
> if there are any glaring mistakes please let me know!


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